Blasts hit Iraq's Kirkuk, disputed territories

Residents survey damaged houses following an overnight car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 17, 2012. On Sunday a series of blasts struck Shiite Muslim targets in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, home to a mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, Each ethnic group has competing claims to the oil-rich area, the Kurds want to incorporate the area into their self-ruled region in Iraq's north, but Arabs and Turkomen are opposed, police said.

Reuters reports — Bombs and mortar blasts struck two cities in Iraq's disputed territories on Sunday, killing at least nine people at a time of escalating tension between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north.

A string of bombings hit Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city at the heart of a dispute between the Arab-led central government in Baghdad and ethnic Kurds who run their own regional authority to the north of the country. Full story…

AP

People inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in al-Mouafaqiyah, a village inhabited by families from the Shabak ethnic group, near the city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 17.

Marwan Ibrahim / AFP - Getty Images

A youth inspects destruction following two bomb blasts near a Shiite place of worship in the flashpoint town of Tuz Khurmatu in the Kirkuk province of Iraq, Dec. 17.